order that he should be kept in the dark. On the other hand in the course of the wild and startling tirade which precedes his exit, he works himself up to the opposite point of view, and expresses it with an energy and assurance far exceeding that of Admetus. As the speech is for many reasons important, as it contains the only unequivocal commendation bestowed in the drama upon the act which we have to consider, and as Browning, cheered, we may well suppose, by finding here, for the first and last time, something like the tone of religious confidence which the Heracles of Balaustion's Adventure might be expected to use, has discarded for the moment the somewhat stumbling style of his average dialogue, and has produced a version of excellent spirit, I should like to quote the whole of it.
O much-enduring heart and hand of mine
Now show what sort of son she bore to Zeus,
That daughter of Electruon, Tiruns' child,
Alkmené! for that son must needs save now
The just-dead lady: ay, establish here
I' the house again Alkestis, bring about
Comfort and succour to Admetos so!
I will go lie in wait for Death, black-stoled
King of the corpses! I shall find him, sure,
Drinking, beside the tomb, o' the sacrifice:
And if I lie in ambuscade, and leap
Out of my lair, and seize—encircle him
Till one hand join the other round about—
There lives not who shall pull him out from me,
Rib-mauled, before he let the woman go!
But even say I miss the booty,—say,
Death comes not to the boltered blood,—why then,
Down go I, to the unsunned dwelling-place
Of Koré and the king there,—make demand
Confident I shall bring Alkestis back,
So as to put her in the hands of him
My host, that housed me, never drove me off:
Though stricken with sore sorrow, hid the stroke,
Being a noble heart and honouring me!
Who of Thessalians, more than this man, loves
The stranger? Who, that now inhabits Greece?
Wherefore he shall not say the man was vile
Whom he befriended—native noble heart!
A fine declamation, amazingly fine—and not the less so, or
